Always You
by Ego And Psyche
Summary: The release of the latest Junai novel causes Hiroki to clear up something that Nowaki has misunderstood for a long time. Just some mindless fluff.


_Always You_

**A/N: Yes, I'm fully aware that I should really be working on Shoudou when I have the time, but the place where I've left off is giving me serious ulcers, if I don't get that chapter right I'm gonna kill myself I swear. So to take my mind off all that heavy angsty stuff for a while I'm giving you guys some fluffy Egoist goodness. :)**

oOo

'Junai Egoist…again?'

Nowaki's voice was lightly teasing, and Hiroki's face just got redder. Not trusting himself to speak, he nodded at the sidewalk. The snippet below the title in the garish display that was currently selling 'their' love life to the world had made the contents of Akihiko's latest BL novel pretty clear.

_Is there anything I didn't tell him?_ From past experience, he knew the chances were slim. Though years of the similar events had done nothing if not prepared him for such eventualities, he was hard-pressed not to go raging into Akihiko's thrice-damned lair right there and then. Past experiences had already advised him against the futility of said effort, however, so he just shoved his hands into his pockets and scowled darkly through his blush. 'Let's just get away from here', he snapped, before those amused blue orbs made him feel any more convicted.

Once they were at what Hiroki deemed a safe distance from the bookstore—or any other suspicious-looking bookstore—Hiroki suddenly put a hand on Nowaki's arm, causing the taller man to stop and look at his lover with some concern.

Hiroki was no longer dipped in red, but the faintest of pinks still danced on his cheeks as he coughed, a bit too loudly. There was considerable mortification saturating that cough, but right underneath that lay urgency too.

'Hiro-san?' Nowaki asked finally, after Hiroki had stayed silent for an entire minute, blushing and unblushing and looking anywhere but into his lover's eyes. 'Hiro-san, what's—'

'Sorry', Hiroki mumbled, and his face finally did go red again, all at once; the color sprang back into his face as he dropped his hand and raised his head, still not quite meeting Nowaki's now rather perplexed gaze. The dark-haired man's eyes widened for a very brief moment, then filled with understanding.

'Hiro-san, it's not your—'

'—fault?' Hiroki's eyes turned fierce. 'Whose is it then?'

'The alcohol?' Nowaki suggested mildly. Hiroki's fingers twitched reflexively, longing for a good heavy book, and he was torn between gladness and annoyance when no such blunt instrument materialized. His shoulders slumped, the wave of anger having crashed long since and now only foam.

'Then I'll stop drinking', he grumbled. The blood pulsed in and out of his face again. 'Either way, the bottom line is I'm an absolute ass when drunk. So the solution is to separate me from alcohol.'

'No it isn't', offered Nowaki with a cheeky grin. 'The solution is to stay away from Usami-san when you're drunk.'

_And at all other times too,_ Hiroki heard in his tone, and muttered under his breath that Nowaki was a possessive idiot. At which statement Nowaki only grinned wider and reached down for the slender hand that had slipped from his own in the rush to get away from the bookstore. Hiroki let him take it without protest, but the blush returned for good. 'Say, Nowaki.'

'Hai?'

'Why are you never pissed at those novels?' he asked suddenly. It wasn't the first time that such a lack of any real response had elicited some curiosity in the older man; it somehow stung him, though he would never admit it, that Nowaki seemed to take the concept of their privacy so lightly. _Any rational person would surely have sued Akihiko for libel by now…_

Nowaki shrugged. 'I don't see any reason to. I mean…that Junai Egoist couple…they're not us, you know.'

'What d'you mean they're not us? They've got our names and our jobs and—'

'And?'

'And—well…' Hiroki floundered momentarily, then rallied. 'And they _look_ like us! You've seen those fucking illustrations! Of course they're—'

The sensation of Nowaki's warm hand tightening around his own stilled him for just long enough to allow his lover to speak. 'That's really all, Hiro-san.'

'What's all?' growled Hiroki petulantly, peeved that he'd been thrown off-balance by something as simple and everyday as the giant goofball's hands. Hands that had been his undoing from the very beginning…_and probably will be for the rest of my life._ The thought coursed through his frame with a sensation akin to content, utterly annihilating his pride, and he allowed himself to relax in Nowaki's warmth. 'What are you talking about?'

'You haven't read any of those novels', said Nowaki gently, now running a thumb up and down the back of Hiroki's smaller hand. 'I have. But those characters aren't anything like us, from their personalities to what they do in bed…and trust me when I say they're way too wild to be us…' he trailed off at this, casting a sideways glance at Hiroki.

When no response came, he continued, 'if anything, I'd say Usami-san's based them off us pretty loosely. There's nothing to say that those two men are us…besides the names…so I wouldn't worry about it any longer, I mean…'

Hiroki, though somewhat sedated by the sensation of his lover now lacing their fingers together, didn't look entirely mollified. 'But that's not all, is it?' he asked softly. Years of being together had paid off in that Hiroki knew the other man's quirks better than his own.

_The truth is often a lot simpler._ A Nowaki who spoke too much in an attempt to explain was a Nowaki who didn't quite believe what he was saying; his use of more words was an effort to convince himself every bit as much as the other man.

At Hiroki's question, Nowaki's hand stiffened before going limp. 'No, it isn't', he admitted after a pause, drawing and releasing a resigned, _you-got-me_ sort of breath. When the explanation went no further, a now fully provoked Hiroki bonked Nowaki on the head with an 'Oi!'

He was rewarded for his efforts with a tiny smile that bordered dangerously on a grimace. 'It's nothing. It's stupid.'

Hiroki took all of five seconds to comb away his irritation, and now his was the hand tightening around Nowaki's. 'Nowaki', he said slowly, with no real vinegar, 'we've been together for almost eight years…I think I know full well by now that you're stupid all the time. Spit it out.'

Nowaki met Hiroki's eyes squarely, and a brief battle ensued.

The blue eyes were dark with doubt. _You call me a brat for these kinds of things._

Gold-shot russet ones narrowed. _Not when it's something serious._

_Hiro-san…_the eyes were almost pleading now. _I don't know what's serious and what's not for you._

_And you won't know until you try._

'I just figured', said Nowaki jerkily, in no mood for a white flag, 'that if you think it's fine, I should let it go too.'

'If I think it's fine…' Hiroki frowned uncomprehendingly. 'What do you mean?'

Nowaki sighed. 'I don't really understand the dynamics of best friends, Hiro-san…I've never been very close to anyone, except you, and I'm not familiar with these things. If you haven't done something about it by now, you must have a reason. It's no business of mine.'

He smiled lightly and squeezed Hiroki's hand again in a way that made the smaller man's heart clench rather painfully, and not with a good sort of pain.

'Nowaki', said Hiroki in a deep growl. Nowaki hummed his acknowledgement without looking up; his own blush was creeping over his face now, and Hiroki had never felt guiltier.

_All these years…and my feelings still aren't getting through to you._

'Do you remember how, a while after we first started going out, you found me at a café with Akihiko after you got off your flower shop shift?'

Nowaki nodded immediately; Hiroki's heart felt alarmingly tight now.

'And then I pretty much ran away and said I'd call you later?'

Another nod, somewhat reluctantly. Hiroki's free hand rose up of its own accord; his fingers plunged into Nowaki's hair and turned his head so their eyes met again. 'He'd just shown me the draft for his first Junai novel', said Hiroki levelly. 'I ran after him to try and stop him.'

It was his turn to look away as he continued wearily, 'I've tried more than you think, you know. It's just that—well, I know Akihiko, that's all. He's an idiot. If there's something he wants to do, there's no stopping him, I figured that out ages ago…I mean, after a while, you do get tired of arguing…so I just try not to tell him things…and obviously, that doesn't work well…'

His perfectly composed lines had dissolved into babbling somewhere along the way, as the source of his original guilt returned to him with full force, and he was completely unprepared for the mass of arms and chest that he suddenly found himself wrapped in. 'Nowaki?'

'Hiro-san', his lovely idiot breathed above him. 'Hiro-san, you really are cute.'

Hiroki gently disengaged himself from his lover's very public embrace, reminded Nowaki that he was nothing of the sort, and took up the large, warm hand again without so much as a blush. 'And one more thing', he said suddenly with a scowl. 'What was all that about me and Akihiko being best friends?'

Nowaki looked genuinely confused as he said, 'but aren't you?'

Hiroki gave him a long, surprisingly soft-eyed look before letting loose a small chuckle. 'I'm sorry if I've ever made you think otherwise', he said, and his voice carried no hint of a growl, 'but Akihiko isn't my best friend, and hasn't been for many years now.'

'Eh…why not?'

Hiroki gazed at Nowaki, at those fathomless blue eyes that were so purely and beautifully filled with the most childlike of hopes, and thought his heart would burst with love.

'Because', he mumbled, throat too tight for him to speak any other way, 'You've always been my best friend. Stupid.' His hand gave Nowaki's one more squeeze before he coughed again. 'So let's get that out of the way. And let's go home, we've been standing here like idiots this whole time. I'm cold.'

The last two words seemed to rouse Nowaki from a daze. 'Of course, Hiro-san.'

As they resumed walking down the road, Hiroki made a sudden motion with his free hand as though he had wanted to punch Nowaki in the face, but thought better of it at the last moment. Nowaki caught the movement and looked at Hiroki with mild inquiry in his still love-drunk eyes.

Hiroki glared at him. 'Pervert…you actually read those novels?'

Nowaki nodded, only slightly sheepish. 'We do get them for free', he grinned. 'Shame to let them just sit around in the house.' Hiroki, for all his raving about the novels, had been unwilling to throw them away because it went against his policy of respecting _all_ books…even those that weren't worthy of the name.

'I see', said Hiroki, voice unexpectedly calm. And then, much to Nowaki's astonishment, 'are they really not like us in bed?'

Nowaki shook his head, and his grin grew steadily more delighted as he watched Hiroki win the struggle he was having with himself. His adorable smaller lover was flaming right to the tips of his ears as he muttered, 'we could always change that.'

oOo

**A/N: My first Egoist fic (nervous author is nervous) don't rub my nose in my suckerness for fluff plzkthnx. Review (doh) with anything you have to say, anything at all :D I'll be waiting…no seriously, guys, I need epic practice for Egoist fan fiction. Writing about these two makes me hellishly nervous. So I do need feedback already.**


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